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On April 30th, Facebook held F8, their annual conference to announce their latest product changes and launches.

With privacy as a top concern, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed the company’s shift to focus on connecting people and communities within protected spaces. Will the newest product enhancements benefit consumers, and marketers alike? While the mediate.ly team consistently uses Facebook and Instagram for our clients’ campaigns, over the past year we’ve seen CPMs rise, and targeting capabilities decrease. So, some new opportunities for marketers to forge meaningful connections on their platforms are coming just in time! Here are three highlights on the changes, and how they can impact your approach to social advertising:

1) New Design Makes Stories More Prominent. If you haven’t already shifted a portion of your creative to video, now is the time. In Facebook’s new design, the Stories feed is larger and impossible to skip over. In 2018, Facebook Stories had more than 150 Million daily users – this will only go up with the new design. We recommend Facebook Story Ads as a place to get your ad seen. See screenshot below.

Plus, with the new interactive features on Instagram’s Story Ads, your videos can take your brand message to a new level across these platforms. Polling is an awesome feature for Story Ads! Did you know that a quarter of all Instagram ads are single videos? Facebook is now fully in the ad stories game, get your brand in there too!

2) Facebook is declaring Groups are the heart of the platform. The new design features a prominent Groups tab with a personalized groups activity feed. Facebook’s investment in Groups will enable users to develop communities and share within those circles – a way to connect, but with more privacy and control. As a marketer, cultivating meaningful groups to listen and contribute will help build your brand. For example, University Alumni groups are a great way to communicate campus news and build a development pipeline. With the new design, news and activities from the group will be front and center. Later this summer, Facebook will roll out a new events tab “so you can see what’s happening around you, get recommendations, discover local businesses, and coordinate with friends to make plans to get together.”

3) Messenger will support lead development. Facebook is completely re-building Messenger from the ground up with the promise that it will be lighter and faster – to be rolled out later this year. In addition to the revamped build, there will be some new solutions making it easier for businesses to cultivate leads and drive in-store traffic. There will be a lead gen template for Messenger within Ads Manager and the ability for consumers to book appointments within the Messenger app. See screenshots below. Mediate.ly will keep an eye on the releases and test as soon as we can.